1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a device and a method for arbitrarily setting up a display language from a list of a plurality of languages available for displaying various optional items.
2. Description of Related Art
Various types of display devices have been in use on various types of equipment throughout the world in recent years. These typical display devices incorporate a display unit such as a LCD (liquid crystal display) and a CRT (cathode ray tube) and are used for setting up various parameters and/or inputting operational instructions. Such devices can be divided primarily into two types, i.e., the separate type and the touch panel type.
A separate type device consists of a display unit that includes a screen where optional items are displayed and a plurality of hard keys for selecting an arbitrary item from a list of optional items displayed, which are provided independently and separate from the display unit. The display unit consists of a small LCD capable of displaying a line or up to five lines of message. The selection of a particular item is executed by pressing a hard key.
A touch panel type device consists of a display unit, which is either a LCD or CRT with a diagonal face width of 3 to 6 inches, and a touch switch consisting of a matrix of transparent electrodes arranged on the display unit. Selection of an item is executed when the user touches the screen at a particular location. More specifically, the location where the user touched is detected based on the signal from the touch switch, and the detected location is collated with the locations of various displayed items to identify the item selected by the user.
The separate type device is typically used on computer peripheral devices such as printers and scanners, or relatively small copying machines and facsimile machines. On the other hand, the touch panel type device is typically used on relatively large and/or multiple functioned copying machines and facsimile machines as well as on automatic teller machines.
In order to make these devices usable in various countries around the world, some of these devices allow the user to set up a language of the user's choice from a list of various stored languages.
For example, the Publication of Unexamined Patent Application No. JP-A-6-75732 discloses a printer equipped with a multiple language display device. The display allows the user a choice between English and Japanese as the display language. Moreover, the language change screen always displays both “English” and “NIHONNGO ()” as optional items for selecting English or Japanese respectively regardless of which language is currently set up. The Japanese phrase “NIHONNGO ()” means “Japanese.”
However, all items on the screen which allows the user to set up the language change screen are displayed in the selected language, so that it is difficult to switch to the language change screen for a user who does not understand the language currently set up.